Understanding the Anti-Radicalism of the National Civic Federation

John Zerzan

doi:10.1017/S0020859000004612

Understanding the Anti-Radicalism of the National Civic Federation

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008

John Zerzan

Article contents

Extract
References

Rights & Permissions

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The labor historians Perlman and Taft provide us with an acceptable, if general, introduction to the National Civic Federation:

“The national organization was an outgrowth of the Chicago Civic Federation, organized in 1893, to bring about better relations between capital and labor and to promote the study of civic problems. The Chicago Civic Federation succeeded in averting a number of labor controversies, and in 1900, its chief promoter, Ralph Easley, sought to extend its range of activities. He founded the National Civic Federation, composed of capitalists, labor leaders, and representatives of the public.”

Type: Research Article
Information: International Review of Social History , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , August 1974 , pp. 194 - 210

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859000004612 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1974

References

^{page 194 note 1} Perlman, Selig and Taft, Philip, Labor Movements [History of Labor in the United States, Vol. IV] (New York, 1935), p. 48.Google Scholar

^{page 194 note 2} Taft, Philip, Organized Labor in American History (New York, 1964), p. 734.Google Scholar

^{page 195 note 1} Green, Marguerite, The National Civic Federation and the American Labor Movement 1900–1925 (Washington, D.C., 1956), p. ix.Google Scholar

^{page 195 note 2} Bransten, Richard, Men Who Lead Labor (New York, 1937), p. 42.Google Scholar

^{page 195 note 3} Dunn, Robert W., The Americanization of Labor (New York, 1927), p. 72.Google Scholar

^{page 195 note 4} Foner, Philip S., The Policies and Practices of the AFL, 1900–1909 (New York, 1964), p. 61.Google Scholar Compare Foner's remarks with Morris Hillquit on the subject: “To the organized labor movement the policy of the Civic Federation is the most subtle and insidious poison. It robs it of its independence, virility and militant enthusiasm; it hypnotizes or corrupts its leaders, weakens its ranks, and demoralizes its fights.” M. Hillquit to R. Easley, New York, June 16, 1911 (reprinted by Green, p. 166).

^{page 196 note 1} Weinstein, James, “Gompers and the New Liberalism, 1900–1909”, in: Studies on the Left, Vol. V, No 4 (Fall 1965)Google Scholar, reprinted by For A New America, ed. by James Weinstein and David W. Eakins (New York, 1970).

^{page 197 note 1} Reed, Louis S., The Labor Philosophy of Samuel Gompers (New York, 1930), p. 117.Google Scholar

^{page 197 note 2} Gompers, Samuel, Labor and the Employer (New York, 1920), p. 277.Google Scholar

^{page 197 note 3} Harvey, Rowland Hill, Samuel Gompers: Champion of the Toiling Masses (Stanford, 1935), p. 145.Google Scholar

^{page 198 note 1} Lorwin, Lewis, The American Federation of Labor (Washington, D.C., 1933), p. 84.Google Scholar

^{page 198 note 2} Harvey, op. cit., p. 141.

^{page 198 note 3} Boyer, Richard O. and Morais, Herbert M., Labor's Untold Story (New York, 1955), p. 182.Google Scholar

^{page 199 note 1} Dulles, Foster Rhea, Labor in America (New York, 1949), p. 194.Google Scholar

^{page 199 note 2} Lorwin, op. cit., p. 84.

^{page 199 note 3} Ibid., p. 85.

^{page 199 note 4} Perlman and Taft, op. cit., pp. 101–106.

^{page 199 note 5} Ware, Norman, Labor in Modern Industrial Society (New York, 1935), pp. 321–323.Google Scholar

^{page 200 note 1} Mandel, Bernard, Samuel Gompers (Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1963), pp. 243–246.Google Scholar

^{page 200 note 2} Reprinted by Boyer and Morais, op. cit., p. 139.

^{page 200 note 3} Green, characteristically, has no explanation for this shift, owing to the fact that she everywhere devotes herself to defending the NCF's image. The best she attempts is to refer to unfavorable “economic conditions” obtaining after 1905, a highly dubitable comment. See pp. 69–70.

^{page 200 note 4} Bonnett, Clarence, Employers' Associations in the United States (New York, 1922), p. 412.Google Scholar

^{page 201 note 1} See Appendix. The articles appeared in the February, 1912 Review (Vol. III, No 11) and the June 15, 1919 Review (Vol. IV, No 15).

^{page 201 note 2} Lorwin, op. cit., p. 113. See also Appendix for numerous examples in the issues of the Review.

^{page 201 note 3} Quoted in Dunn, op. cit., pp. 204–205.

^{page 201 note 4} Green, op. cit., p. 469.

^{page 201 note 5} In that part of her bibliography called “An Essay on the Sources”, she rather inexplicably says that the issues of the Review “yield little information to the historian of the Federation”.

^{page 201 note 6} See Appendix.

^{page 202 note 1} Green, op. cit., p. 180.

^{page 202 note 2} Dubofsky, Melvyn, We Shall Be All: A History of the IWW (Chicago, 1969).Google Scholar Shows the partnership between employers, AFL and government so often employed to meet the Wobblies' organizing efforts; see especially Chapters 15 and 16.

^{page 202 note 3} Chaplin, Ralph, Wobbly (Chicago, 1948), p. 287.Google Scholar See also pp. 245, 301, 322, 331–332 re AFL hostility and cooperation with the government.

^{page 202 note 4} Gompers, Samuel, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, II (New York, 1967), p. 116.Google Scholar

^{page 202 note 5} Steuben, John, Labor in Wartime (New York, 1940), p. 19.Google Scholar Also, Lorwin, op. cit., pp. 138–139.

^{page 202 note 6} Green, op. cit., p. 366.

^{page 202 note 7} Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, p. 332.

^{page 203 note 1} See Chaplin and Dubofsky cited above re the IWW, for example.

^{page 203 note 2} Critics of the NCF have made much of not only the excesses of both the League and the CPI, but of the alleged extra-constitutional methods involved in their joint efforts against individuals. Appropriately, Creel mentions not a word regarding Easley and the NCF in either his How We Advertised America (1920) or his autobiography Rebel at Large (1947).

^{page 203 note 3} Green, op. cit., p. 391.

^{page 203 note 4} Green, op. cit., p. 392.

^{page 204 note 1} Green, op. cit., pp. 392–393.

^{page 204 note 2} Quoted from Hapgood, Norman, Professional Patriots (New York, 1928), p. 100.Google Scholar See also Howard, Sidney, “Our Professional Patriots”, in: New Republic, September 10, 1924.Google Scholar Howard describes Burns's files benefiting Gompers as “a convenient source of A.F. of L. propaganda against renegade unions”.

^{page 204 note 3} Taft, Philip, The AFL in the Time of Gompers (New York, 1957), pp. 230–231.Google Scholar

* Materials made available by courtesy of the Stanford University Library.

Article contents

Understanding the Anti-Radicalism of the National Civic Federation

Extract

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests